henry, alice, abby, claire and my wife karen is here and my mother doris and many friends but also the basis as well. thank you all for coming out. i appreciate your time and interest. in "rise to greatness" i tell the story of the most eventful and perilous time in american history, 1862. as much as possible i tell it through the eyes of the man who guided the nation through the fire, abraham lincoln. i don't want to spoil the book for you, so let me just say that the year began with the american republic in grave danger. the union army was struggling to regrow virtually overnight from a few thousand men scattered across the continent, to more than half a billion. the inexperienced officers, the command of these were all volunteers was stymied by the sheer size of the breakaway confederate states of america. which covered a state larger than the entire european territory, conquered by napoleon. linke's closest advisor was secretary of state william henry seward. seward says that even smart people fail to see the difficulty of the union's task. they didn't apprehend the vast extent of